


never been kissed

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Bisexual Daisy Johnson, Coulson is the cutest, Daisy And Her Huge Crush On Coulson, Dating, F/M, Fluff, Future Fic, Grocery Shopping, Humor, Mentions of Daisy/Lincoln, POV Skye | Daisy Johnson, Romance, Silly, Snacks & Snack Food, Thanksgiving, Unresolved Sexual Tension, mentions of Coulson/Audrey, mentions of Coulson/Rosalind, mentions of Daisy/Miles, mentions of Daisy/Original Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2015-11-30
Packaged: 2018-05-04 04:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5320424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daisy and Coulson go shopping for Thanksgiving dinner and in the process Daisy comes upon some interesting revelations about herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	never been kissed

This is how Daisy Johnson falls in love in the middle of a supermarket.

Little by little.

First Coulson tugs her hoodie down, exposing her face.

"You don't have to," he says. "No one is going to recognize you here."

She shrugs, fixing her clothes. "You're right, I'm being paranoid."

They had pulled their weight and kept relatively under the radar through the whole Registration Act fiasco and the complicated summer that followed, but that doesn't mean everybody is okay with gifted individuals, specially ones with alien origins.

She looks around. Her identity hasn't been entirely compromised, but there is still a chance someone might be looking for the strange woman who can provoke earthquakes. Not in here, though, it seems, and Daisy breathes a long breath under Coulson's amused glance. Here there's only regular people doing the same thing as her and Coulson: shopping for their Thanksgiving dinner. And Daisy and Coulson might not be _regular_ people under any definition of the word but right now they are fitting in pretty well. Which is another reason why she's glad they are the ones doing the shopping and not a more conspicuous team like May and Fitz. They even look the part, and no one wandering through the supermarket and coming across them would suspect they are part of a secret organization. Daisy gives her companion a sideways look and he really is looking the part. Coulson is wearing a freaking sports sweater of all things, and jeans, and he looks so comfy and youthful. And handsome. Well, he's a handsome guy, just not the kind of handsome someone like Daisy would notice. It's a strange thought to have right now, she realizes, but she's in a strange situation.

"What? You're not going to make _homemade_ cranberry sauce from scratch?" she protests when she sees him browsing through the sauces. The only detail out of place is that he's wearing gloves but it's cold enough today to justify it, even though the image, the reminder, will never fail to make Daisy's stomach drop in an ugly way.

"It's not about showing off my cooking skills," Coulson says.

" _It's not?_ "

He chuckles at that, pleased.

"It's about the team," he goes on. "To make them feel at home. It's meant to be homey. Most people grew up on canned stuff. I did."

"I spent most Thanksgivings alone, eating those one-person ready meals," she tells him, shrugging.

"But you seem up for this," Coulson points out.

Yes, she is pretty excited about tonight, specially the preparations, she was actually looking forward to doing the grocery shopping with him, and was hoping that impending doom and supervillain attacks would wait until tomorrow for Daisy to suit up and kick their asses. She wanted an ass-kicking-free day today. Except she's going to kick ass at buying food for dinner, she's decided.

"I want the team to have a good time," she admits to Coulson. "And it's Will's first Thanksgiving in fourteen years so, like, that's a lot of pressure on us."

She slaps Coulson's arm gently, stressing the _us_ part, like they are a two-people Thanksgiving machine, and then they keep wandering through the well stacked aisles.

It's early in the day – Coulson _insisted_ on doing this with plenty of time, the dork – and the aisles of the supermarket are not yet filled with the scent of desperation, only the tiniest tinge of existential despair so far. Daisy is happy to be doing something seemingly so normal and almost domestic with the boss. Except Coulson hasn't exactly been her boss for a long time; she commandeers her own team and they interact as equals. And now that things have quieten down a bit (is he sure no one will recognize her?) they have discovered that they work a lot better like that. Her constant questioning of his methods doesn't sound so insubordinate now, and their close friendship doesn't have to be strained by rules and regulations. Being here is proof of that; shopping together for Thanksgiving dinner for the team (as if they were the responsible parents of a litter of unruly children, imagine that), in casual clothes – maybe too casual, now that she thinks about it, there are holes in her jeans and her hair is done in a practical bun, and we have already established how painfully comfortable Coulson looks.

"I like this," she says.

"What? Shopping?"

"Shopping together. It's nice."

Maybe that sounds a little too needy but she doesn't care. She likes spending time with Coulson, and they haven't always been able to. (Sometimes that has been his fault, entirely, he should be aware of that)

He gives her a little nod and a smile, like he doesn't know how to respond to her eagerness. He looks like he's enjoying himself, too, she can tell. She can always tell. He's probably relieved it's her coming with him to do this, because Daisy doesn't feel the need to hurry him when he takes too long picking the right Parmesan (even though she's not sure that the _right one_ means) to make his spinach and artichokes dip, and she doesn't roll her eyes at him through the process. She actually likes this about Coulson, she's not merely tolerating it. She has done this once before, when she and Miles, against their better judgement, decided to be conventional and tried to cook a turkey for Thanksgiving one year. She had done all the research and was quite excited about it but Miles had been an impatient shopper and they forgot to buy half the stuff they needed. The whole day was a complete disaster and even years later Daisy is now feeling a pang of disappointment remembering that (and a pang of something more complicated, and for a moment she misses Miles a lot). Not that she's comparing them but... doing this with Coulson is a lot more enjoyable and stress-free.

"How are we doing on Cayenne pepper back at the base?" he wonders out loud, putting a bottle of Dijon mustard in the trolley.

It's her turn to chuckle now.

"What?" he asks, confused.

"Nothing."

He narrows his eyes at her. "I'm sorry. I'm getting too wrapped up in this, am I?"

She shakes her head and she keeps pushing the trolley along the aisle.

They don't follow any organized route, and it's a bit like they are doing some tourism, going from getting lemons to getting pecans without reason or rhyme. And why not? They're agents of SHIELD, they spend their days dealing with powered people who want to hurt normal people, or normal people who want to hurt powered people, or Nazis who want to hurt both. A big grocery mission is like an adventure for them. Daisy feels like on a journey, like on vacation, exporing new sighs.

Or old, familiar sighs.

"Oh my god, Coulson, I loved these," she says, stopping him and holding up a bag of Snyder's. "I used to _lived_ on these for a while."

Coulson examines the bag of cheese popcorn with suspicion. "Don't they have Pirate's Booty? That's _my_ brand."

Dude is serious about his snacks, which Daisy respects. _A lot_.

"Yep, but they are out of everything but Fruity Booty."

He grimaces. "Grab me one of yours then."

"We will probably have to hide all this cheezy goodness from Simmons, though."

"That's half the fun," Coulson says, his voice the equivalent of him winking.

Daisy decides to get two for each of them – they're _not_ sharing with the team, and Coulson agrees without a protest – because it's clear that she's never going to get to old age, not in her line of work, so she might as well stuff her face while she's at it. Coulson seems to share that outlook somehow and now that bothers her a bit; she thinks she would really want him to get to old age, even in their line of work.

"I used to like to wander around big supermarkets like this one and just look at all the stuff," Daisy says, reminiscing. "I couldn't afford most of it but it was nice to look at, all the variety, the offers. And big places give you more leeway if you want to take your time browsing, they won't immediately think you're going to steal."

Coulson stops walking and looks at her with those big soft eyes he has sometimes when she talks about her past and she didn't mean for him to pity her – but she remembers that it actually feels good when he looks at her like he resents the world for giving her anything other than pure unadulterated happiness. Because that's a good feeling to get. And that's a good kind of person to have by your side (in any capacity, in whatever capacity Coulson is by her side, she's never too sure), someone who wishes the world for you, even if Daisy doesn't usually believes she deserves it. It always comes as a wave of warmth, when she's talking about her life and looks up and there it is, Coulson's face doing that thing it does.

"What I mean is, I like places like this," she adds, because she doesn't want him to pity her, not really. "They're comforting to me."

Coulson's emotional expression ebbs out little by little, crease on his skin by crease, until it becomes something more ordinary, equally friendly.

"At least they have a good music in here," he comments. "That's unusual."

Daisy pays attention.

"I know this one," she easily identifies the tune. "You have it, but your version is better."

Coulson openly grins now, as if touched that she remembers what's in his music collection and the creases around his eyes look a lot different now. "It's not mine, it's Chet Baker's version, though," he points out.

Daisy once had a girlfriend who declared one should never date anyone who didn't love music – and Daisy means _girlfriend_ and no, it wasn't a phase, thank you, she thinks angrily, feeling surprisingly protective about her past lovers and she does mean _lovers_. Marsha was awesome all around, she remembers well, and she used to wear all kind of cheap jewelry and also concert wristbands and Daisy remembers her beautiful arms more than anything, and though she is not quite in agreement there (Daisy herself doesn't _love_ music and doesn't think not loving music is an unforgivable character flaw, specially once you become acquainted with prospective romantic partners whose character flaws include _mass murder_ ) but she also, many years later, gets the point Marsha was trying to make to her. Find someone who loves something, who can be passionate about something. And it's not like – she's not going to start thinking about dating Coulson, that's absurd, but from that point of view, he is a good potential date.

"What?" he asks.

" _What_?"

His lips quirk in amusement. "Why are you staring at me like that?"

Daisy quickly looks away, shoving her hands into her jacket for a moment.

It's probably just the holidays, and remembering old boyfriends and girlfriends, and the fact that things have been so unusually easy between her and Coulson. Or the fact that he looks a bit mopey and lonely himself. 

"I was thinking about something else," she offers, pathetic.

Coulson raises an eyebrow but lets it go. For a moment she's curious. How did he think she was staring at him? Did he realize she was thinking about him as a _potential date_? No way, or he would look alarmed and not amused.

"Don't forget that healthy tofu stuff for Alisha," she reminds him, trying to get back on track.

She wonders if Coulson is good with tofu, cooking that sort of thing and she starts thinking about _his_ ex girlfriends. Audrey looked like she probably ate a lot of vegeterian stuff, right? On the other hand Roz probably ate babies and puppies for breakfast so she wonders how Coulson managed that. Did they always order Evil Takeout? She doesn't want to be mean and what she's feeling is uncomfortably close to jealousy.

Coulson is the one who is uncomfortable close now, leaning over Daisy's shoulder. _What_?

"What else does the list say?" he asks, trying to see the paper she's holding. Oh, okay. But she can still smell his aftershave. Which, not a problem, they spend most of the day together, ever day, she knows what his aftershave smells like, it's never been A Thing. And his breath on her cheek? Hot – she means _warm_ , but totally not a thing either.

" _Chocolate, lots of chocolate_ ," she reads.

Coulson pulls back and takes the list out of her hand to check the handwriting. He shakes his head. " _Gutierrez_ ," he mutters in disapproval.

"We could buy chocolate _snacks_ ," Daisy offers.

"If you're thinking–"

" _Little Debbie_? Always."

Coulson's eyes get all flashy and big and adoring. Their culinary interests certainly align, which should count as much as musical ones. Daisy is thinking Cosmic Brownies, sure that Coulson will appreciate the irony.

The rest is easy and fun, like a personality test for the team but with food. Most of Coulson's money goes to getting May and Andrew _good_ booze because apparently they can only tolerate the best. Coulson tells her some good stories about drunken May that Daisy files away for blackmail material. Fitz, as the good Scot he is, has absolutely no taste and they could feed him pasta salad or a piece of granite for all it matters, Coulson bemoans. Lincoln is a lot more conventional than he looks and when Daisy confesses what dishes he likes best Coulson almost gasps, "he eats like my father, or my father's father", "no, definitely your father's father" and they both chuckle and go in search of ingredients for the most boring mashed potatoes in history just to make the guy happy. Coulson is very fastidious about picking at least one thing for each member of the team, something they might like, specifically. It's adorable when you think about it. Daisy is thinking about it. On the other hand he spends way too long thinking about what Mack might want to eat – like, an inorderly amount of time, because he's always trying to impress Mack, as if he were the Director and Coulson his subordinate. Now that's the bit where she rolls her eyes. Before deciding to help out with Coulson's annoying man-crush.

"Mack might pretend to be too cool for that stuff, but he actually likes healthy food," Daisy offers. "Not Alisha-level healthy, but I saw him eating three gluten-free cupcakes in a row the other day."

He and Bobbi have the same tastes so what goes for one goes for the other and Coulson mutters something about a green bean casserole.

"What did Daniels wanted?"

" _Everything_ ," Daisy replies. Will's word.

Wandering, Coulson bumps into a woman in front of the flours and starches shelf. Daisy watches on, amused, as the two exchange polite apologies.

"I'm a bit lost," the woman admits, laughing nervously and clasping the grocery list in her hand a bit too tightly, while she inspects the bottle she has in her other hand suspiciously. "I'm not sure..."

Coulson puts on a variation of his diplomatic smile – but Daisy can tell it's different, it's warm and he means it and Daisy thinks it's a pity he spends so much time away from people, because that's what Phil Coulson really loves, being around people.

"You should buy this one," he tells the woman. It's soft enough – and Coulson-esque in that non-assuming way he has of doing most stuff – that it doesn't look intrusive from the outside when he presents an alternative thickening agent. "It's a bit more expensive but you'll find out that you'll use less of it to thicken the sauce."

The woman somehow trusts his choice and showers him with gratitude before going back to her trolley. Why wouldn't she trust Coulson? He looks so trustworthy and... _charming_. Daisy suddenly wonders what it feels like, having that kind of attention from Coulson. If he were to decide he wanted to swoop Daisy off her feet or some old-fashioned expression. He'd be a good suitor, Daisy decides – he'd be helpful, for one, telling you all about cooking ingredients and how to save money on groceries. What? Daisy thinks that's attractive. Okay, she's weird like that. Not that Coulson has had much chance to practice his, mmm, attractiveness, other than with random strangers in supermarkets, lately. Some of that is his fault, granted ( _Roz_ was definitely his fault – but a failed second try with Audrey was nobody's fault), but it's a bit of a waste. Flirt mode always looks good on him.

"I see how you do it now," Daisy decides to tease him, touching an accusing finger against his shoulder. "You prey on unsuspecting women doing the shopping and make them swoon with your knowledge of condiments. Charm school."

He looks at her slyly, catching on and playing the role of the cad, hands on his hips, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yeah, yeah."

"I was just trying to help," he says, more seriously. Then explains: "I think she was a bit overwhelmed. From what I could tell, recently divorced, it's probably just her and the kids this year, for the first time, she's trying to make it all feel perfect, _normal_. For them."

Daisy can tell Coulson is talking from experience (and the idea makes her heart feel too heavy for a moment and she realizes exactly what it feels like, to wish the world for someone else), but she can't help but be impressed by his profiling skills.

"You are good at this," she says in genuine admiration. Coulson is not a badass field agent like May or Bobbi or herself, but he shines at this.

"I just notice things. Like her ring finger, the paler shade of skin. Her grocery list looked _really_ detailed. And she seemed in a hurrry, meaning–"

"Babysitter," Daisy fills. "Or she left the kids with a neighbour or relative she doesn't trust 100%. and it's _kids_ plural because she had already bought a lot of stuff."

"You're good too."

She knows. Still, it's always nice hearing it, specially from Coulson. She holds her head a bit higher for a moment, forgetting all about being incognito for a moment. "Thanks," she tells him. "I just hope that lady and her family have a nice dinner, honestly."

"Me too."

They keep on in a kind of awkward silence. Daisy thinks about how it's not only Coulson who hasn't had the chance to practice his romantic moves lately. She herself has been pretty lonely for months. Her and Lincoln had like four false starts before getting some traction, and even that had fizzled out pretty quickly and pathetically. They are okay, they are on friendly terms, but it had gone nowhere. Maybe that explains the weird mood she's in since they put foot on the supermarket, this weird fantasy of doing couple-y things with Coulson of all people. She's lonely, that's it. And Coulson is, well, not just here, but here and _ideal_.

Ideal and unattainable, even if she were to think about it seriously – which she's not, for the record, she's just joking about this stuff.

"We still have to get the turkey," she says.

Coulson lets out a wearing sigh. "I guess we have to."

"How does one choose a turkey again?"

"You've never done this?" he asks.

"I've never done the shopping part," she tells him, overlooking the attempt with Miles, because that really shouldn't count. "Had a couple of Thanksgivings with foster parents. Not the greatest of memories."

"I'm sorry," Coulson says. "And when you were older?"

"The Rising Tide disapproves of such a celebration."

Coulson nods, "Right, I remember."

He gets a weird faraway look and he smiles to himself.

"You _remember_?"

"You made a whole podcast about it," Coulson reminds her. "It was impressive. Very convincing. I almost didn't celebrate that year because of it."

"You listened to my Rising Tide podcasts?"

Coulson suddenly looks like a kid caught doing something naughty. She swears his ears have gone red all of the sudden. She might be losing her mind because it's the cutest thing she's ever seen.

Something weird is going on with her today, it's obvious, and Daisy can no longer blame it on the domestic setting or her loneliness. There's something else. She walks by his side, pushing the trolley along, suddenly very aware and very careful with each of her expressions and movements around Coulson.

It's him the one to break the silence.

"I still have them, your Rising Tide podcasts."

He still has that expression on his face and sounds a bit wistful.

"You do?"

"Sometimes I think about listening to them again, but I couldn't do that without asking for your permission," he goes on, picking up a bag of frozen green beans and then putting it down again. "And I never know how to ask something like that."

Daisy doesn't understand at all. Why would he...?

"Why would you want to listen to that silly stuff again?"

"I love your voice," Coulson says, _casually_ , like it's obvious.

Daisy stares at him in cofusion. Before he can say anything else – anything _worse_ , that's what he's probably thinking – he makes an awkward noise and turns around, looking away and pretending to be very interested in the frozen prawns on offer.

It's painful to watch, among other things, and Daisy would love a play-by-play of this whole morning from his point of view, what he was thinking while they were throwing stuff on their cart and Daisy was thinking all this stuff she shouldn't have been thinking. Was he thinking the same? But that can wait for now. She walks up to Coulson and twists her fingers into his – soft, unbearably youthful-looking – sweater and pulls him towards her, pressing her mouth to his.

The kiss is _embarrassingly_ perfect, and a familiar voice inside Daisy's head starts telling her that this could only go downhill from now on and she almost believes it but then Coulson's intial shock melts into an actual response and he pushes his tongue inside Daisy's mouth gently and _uphill_ , definitely uphill.

When they pull apart, both wide-eyed and out of breath, Daisy notices that Coulson's right hand has somehow ended up resting on her hip.

"I've never been kissed in the frozen products aisle before," he tells her.

"Oh, Phil, what a sheltered life you have lived," she teases.

He laughs, a little too hard. It wasn't that funny. But she loves that he laughs anyway.

Date someone who laughs at your jokes, that's another piece of advice she's heard before and didn't understand until now.

Date your best friend, Daisy's ex-girlfriend said, even more important than music.

Well, she's trying to, right now. 

She still has her hand in his sweater so she lets go and flattens it, pressing her palm against his stomach. She can feel him breathe fast under her touch and it's so different to the way she's used to just feeling his vibrations from a distance. 

"What's going to happen now?" he asks, his voice fraught with fear.

Daisy leans into him, pressing their bodies together.

"What do _you_ want to happen?" she asks him.

"More of this, mostly," he says, tightening the grip on Daisy's waist in a wonderful way.

She nods. She feels the same.

"Can you get through Thanksgiving dinner without ravishing me in front of our team?" she asks.

"Please, Daisy, I'm a professional, I'm perfectly capable of–"

"Cutting yourself off? _Compartimentalizing_? Because you have been so good at that when it comes to us."

It's not an accussation, exactly – her being so important to Coulson that Hydra had to shoot her to make him do what they want, daring rescues in Lola, him going down to an alien city to get her with bombs were about to explode all around them, even pushing her away or cutting her off at times because somehow their connection is _too much_ for him, these are not things she's blaming him for but... Coulson nods and drops his gaze, feeling guilty. Then something clicks inside him and he lifts his hand to her face, touching her cheek and leaning to kiss her again, and again, light, gentle kisses. It isn't dramatic like before. It was just so sweet.

"I know," Daisy replies to an unuttered question, looping her arms around him. "But I can't risk losing you, or worse, _hurting_ you. Are you sure this is not just an infatuation in a grocery store?"

"It is an infatuation. But it's been going on for three years. I don't think it'll stop any time soon."

Daisy can't help but kiss him again after he says that, and they might be turning into a bit of an spectacle – and they are blocking the way, the good people of this town might want to get their frozen prawns at a reduced price, after all, Daisy thinks hysterically while Coulson licks the roof of her tongue and she decides _screw the good people of this town_ , they can do their shopping elsewhere, she's in love, she deserves this.

She's in love.

Maybe she should tell Coulson that. Seems like valuable information to convey to your superior, right?

"We still haven't picked the turkey," she says instead. _Romantic_. No wonder he wants her so much.

But he does want her that much, it turns out.

Coulson threads his fingers through her hair very gently, and it's weird because of the gloves, but it feels so nice when he starts massaging her scalp distractedly. She realizes it's been this way for her too, for years, it just took them doing the shopping together for her to admit it.

"I was thinking maybe we should get those individual ready meals for everyone," Coulson says and she can't believe the words that are coming out of his mouth. "I have better things to do for the next few hours than stay in the kitchen cooking."

"Nice," Daisy laughs. "Always date somebody who is willing to prioritze you over turkey."

She declares that's her new motto and love advice from here on. And she watches Coulson's eyes wink slowly and twinkle at the word _dating_.

"I promise you I'll always put you before turkey," he says, all throaty and needy.

She is about to tell him that this is the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to her but if Coulson believes that he might end up firing Lincoln in retaliation. 

"You know what? No," she says, taking his hand in hers. "We can do this. We're going to prepare a flawless Thanksgiving dinner for the team, they are going to _love_ it and then we can spend the next couple of weeks locked in your room as a reward."

Coulson's ears become a nice shade of pink again.

He agrees to it, though. "If that's what you want."

"I've never really had a good family dinner like this," she tells him, more seriously, and Coulson knows enough of her Thanksgiving hang-ups now to know how much that means. "I'd like to try to have the first one with you."

Coulson nods, squeezing her fingers.

"Then you'll let me hear your podcasts again?" he asks shyly.

She leans back, smirking at him. " _Kinky_."

"I didn't mean during... I meant–"

She decides to put him out of his misery before his very-proper-Director head explodes, covering his mouth with hers.

Choosing a stupid turkey will have to wait; this is very dramatic, Daisy has just fallen in love.


End file.
